


Blood Brothers, Part-Time Stolen Lovers

by Trapelo_Road475



Category: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 22:49:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trapelo_Road475/pseuds/Trapelo_Road475
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Steve rejoins the band, they talk.  Sort of.  It all comes down to being scared.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood Brothers, Part-Time Stolen Lovers

There are a thousand things he doesn't tell Bruce until he joins the band again. A thousand things he spent years cultivating the words for.

Mostly, it all comes down to, _I'm sorry,_ and, _I was scared._

It's where it starts and where it ends. 

Scared. Scared and young. Young and stupid. Scared, and young, and stupid.

In love. In love from the day they'd met, probably. The memory of that ache, which was love gone taut, like good exhaustion, like a wide river, like sharing chords and riffs together, trading guitars, one on the piano and one at the notebook, mixing voices, the memory unravels backward. It might as well have been for always. 

Neither of them likes to admit mistakes. They're older now. Somehow, it's okay to touch his shoulder when he slouches at the kitchen counter staring at the toaster and tell him, 

"I'm sorry."

The house is big and still. The kids asleep. Patti awake, but leaving them be. He likes Patti. Always did. Knew she was the one for Bruce because he knew Bruce so deep to the rawness of his bones. Julie was nice, yeah, she was, but he watched them and thought _don't,_ thought, _aw, jesus, somebody's gonna get hurt._

But he was young and stupid and Bruce squared shoulders with him when Steve told him so much, told him he didn't know a goddamn thing and Bruce loved Julianne he did. He wasn't lying, either. It was just it wasn't ever like it was with Patti. When Bruce stands next to her you can all but hear the love coming off them, all electric and golden like a streetlamp humming after midnight.

Steve thinks she knows about them. He is pretty sure she does, which is why she's leaving them alone. He thinks Bruce knows that she knows, but being Bruce, he's scared to let himself know it for sure. 

Back down to it. Scared.

A thousand fucking things.

"I didn't think you'd ever come back."

"You didn't think you'd ever last so long."

"I didn't think you'd ever _wanna._ "

"Are we still friends?"

"Did we stop being friends?"

No. No, of course not. Even after he left the band, Bruce would still talk to him, would still come to him with new work, his eyes wide, sometimes his hands would be shaking, sometimes there would be a sort of smudged look about him, like ink left in a brief soft rain. They were still friends. Blood brothers. Part-time stolen lovers. Whatever it was that bound them, whatever grabbed so tight and held so long it left bruises on his heart. 

First time he ever told Bruce he loved him, the guy was asleep, passed out cold after coming home from a three-day drive. It's what they called it because it was all Bruce would ever say about those hectic, electric times when something would happen in his brain, something would click, and he'd go from filling notebooks and not sleeping for days to grabbing his keys or a ride on the highway - it was a drive. Just went for a drive. Didn't matter he didn't come back for days, scared his mom, pissed off his bandmates, scared Steve. Bruce came home from a drive one night shaking and smudged, looking hungry and lost, ate some meatloaf cold on wonderbread and went to bed. Steve went with him, lay with him, stroked his cold skin, kissed his neck beneath his curls. 

_Love you,_ he'd said. _Don't fuckin' scare me like that no more._

_Love you._

"I was scared, okay?" 

"You think I wasn't?"

"You think I'd have been scared so bad if you weren't?"

"That don't make any sense."

"You wanted to die."

Saying it out loud is like taking hold of something feral and venemous. Bruce cringes and Steve feels his gut twist, his tongue trip on the words. Die. He doesn't want to think _Bruce_ and _die_ at the same time. But it's true. It's part of what scared him, then. 

Bruce looks down at the floor and scrubs his toe along a line in the linoleum. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"I didn't mean to. I mean - I meant it but like - "

"I know. I think."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm sorry." 

He's spent years poring over ways to explain it, and he still can't.

"Bruce - "

Bruce is fiddling with the knobs on the toaster. He fidgets. It's what he does. He always has. It's when he gets still you know something's up. Something's wrong, when he goes still. Quiet, that's ok. It's the hush, the halt of flight, like birds before a storm rolls in.

"I was a selfish fuck, ok? You wanted - that - I mean you were - and I got scared, and I'm sorry."

Bruce pulls the toaster lever down and lets it spring back up.

"I'm better now," he says, soft.

"You know somethin'?"

Bruce gives him a hesitant look, sideways and under his lashes.

"Even if you weren't - "

"I ain't perfect or nothin'."

"No. If you weren't - if it got bad, like that - "

"Yeah."

"You know we're friends."

"Yeah."

"Biggest mistake I ever made in my life was leavin' the band - you - like that."

Bruce's crooked little smile is the same crooked little smile he's sported since he was in high school. Since they met. Since they shared records in Steve's basement. Since they hitchhiked to New York. Since they were in a band. They're in a band, now. Where it starts and where it comes around to.

Patti comes in just about the same time he's got Bruce in a tight, hard hug, just about the time he touches Bruce's neck and Bruce is leaned up against his shoulder, but she doesn't say anything, just tweaks a smile at both of them and gets a beer from the fridge. Steve always did like her.


End file.
